Sensorium Re-Connected, a generative composition for for 5 PCs and 2 voices, commemorates the work of The Listening Room and the contribution this piece made to furthering radio and sound art online in Australia.

Background

Sensorium Re-Connected is both composition and process. The composition is comprised of sounds created by the artist, Stelarc, in collaboration with Rainer Linz, in performances of Ping Body from the Amplified Bodyseries . The sounds include brain waves, heartbeat and blood flow. The sounds of Stelarc’s third mechanical hand are also amplified.

Sensorium Re-Connected also includes sampled sounds triggered from an angle transducer that measures the bending angle of the legs and a sensor that monitors CO2 in the breathing. “These variations make it a much less predictable signal and a much more beautiful resulting sound. The sounds that are indicative of the physiological function of the body, and the mechanical operation of the third hand are rendered neutral in their associations so that they don’t sound like a musical instrument or natural sound or some kind of other technological object that we know and identify with”. (Stelarc, 1996)

Acoustically what’s happening in Stelarc’s performances is a kind of aura is generated around the body. “When internal body signals are amplified they are, in a sense, emptied from the body into the room within which the body is performing. The humanoid shape of the body that originally contains the sound now becomes the cuboid space of the room”. (Stelarc, 1996)

In Sensorium Re-Connected, these sounds are further emptied into the radio broadcast spectrum and further, into what may be referred to as the suspended ever-evolving space of the Internet: an acoustical landscape translating from humanoid form to cuboid space to space as instrument.

What is generative music?

Generative music is algorithmically driven to produce variation, ongoing evolution and development of sounds. The process of creation, performance and distribution of music is changing. The Internet is an amorphous infrastructure for the liberation of creative ideas and [has] no doubt influenced the work of artists the world over. It is a time of enriching exploration and discovery that is akin to the period during which Francesco Pierro was to discover perspective and the body’s relationship to space.

Acknowledgements

Sensorium Re-Connected would not have been possible without the support of ORF/KunstRadio.

Sensorium Connect / Body Morph was originally produced by Sherre DeLys and Andrew Garton for the The Listening Room with the assistance of ABC Radio Arts, ABC Multimedia Unit and ABC Technology Research and Development.

Special thanks to Tim and Peter Cole for their support and generative music / sound software, in particular KoanPro.